A trio of small, wheeled robots each beholden to a particular geo-tagged social web service, tethered together with elastic string, each attempting to pull the other towards the physical location of the most recent event on its particular social network.

A number of web services — Flickr, Twitter, etc. — receive updates with geo-tagged data at a remarkable rate. The proposed robots will receive wireless updates from a laptop with this latitude and longitude information (probably on the order of a few times per second). Using this data and an onboard compass, they will steer toward the location of the most recent photograph / tweet / whatever, and then drive furiously in this direction. This will continue until they receive the latest geo data a bit later, at which point they will set a new course and proceed in that direction.

Since the three bots will be tethered to one another with a length of string, the hope is that they will occasionally get pulled in one direction or another by their neighbors, and perhaps eventually get tangled in the string to the point where they can’t move at all.

Alternately, the bots could lay down string in their wake… sketching their path, overlap, etc.

I love the idea. As far as the mechanisms class goes, I'm interested more in the bots themselves and their mechanical interaction than the physcomp part. It will be interesting to come up with the most basic design that allows you to cart around some rechargeable batteries and has enough torque to drag other bots that might be fighting to pull the most recently active bot back. Let me know if you want help choosing motors, components, etc. Good luck!

April 9 2010 at 2 PM

Thomason Fan:

Hi, all,

I am interested in making one. I don't find any Mindflex in our country. So, I may order either Mindflex or Mindflex duel (new version with two headset) from US. Shipping charges are nearly the same. But I am not sured if the new Mindflex duel uses the same neonsky chip as previous version (i.e. original Mindflex), and output same full set of data.

Has anyone tried the new Mindflex duel ?

Tom

October 12 2011 at 8 AM

telis:

hi.i have made this and i can see all frequences to processing except from meditation and attention.could you tell me whats wrong?